Course Description
This course treats economic, political,
social, religious, and cultural developments affecting western
civilization over the last 500 years in terms of a series
of "revolutions." This helps to underscore the profound
nature of the changes that have occurred during this time
and to suggest the constancy of change in western civilization.
Many of these "revolutions" have been driven by
writings or sets of writings, and we will look closely at
various representative texts to grasp the intellectual underpinnings
of the "revolutions" of western civilization.
Required Textbooks
Perry, Western Civilization: Ideas,
Politics, & Society Volume II (6th Edition)
ISBN 0-395-95937-3, about $69
Available at http://www.college.hmco.com
Grading
Grades are based on participation, discussions,
journals and other projects. See your calendar for dates.
The calendar can be viewed by clicking on "Calendar"
in the navigation at the top of the page.
Unit Topics (13 spread over 15
weeks)
Intro to Course/Consider the Present before the Past
This unit is preliminary and probably
partly remedial stuff—geography, political geography,
forms of government, how we talk about social, economic, cultural
matters. What are we talking about when we use the terms "western"
and "civilization"? We will survey contemporary
institutions, ideas, and conditions so we have some idea of
what the past has led to so far.
1. Commercial Revolution
This chapter goes from late medieval
trading patterns and practices through the rise of great commercial
centers like Antwerp and enterprises like the Hanseatic League
and the great expansion of commercial activity connected with
the age of exploration. Special issues include the profit
mentality, accounting practices, shipbuilding, and early capitalism.
Central text: Alberti, On the Family
2. Protestant Revolution
Covers the Reformation and the rise of
religious pluralism. Contrast old/new belief systems. Implications
for political thought and practice. Wars of religion through
1648.
Central text: Luther, Address to Christian Nobility of
the German Nation, On Christian Liberty
3. Scientific Revolution
The Copernican system, the Newtonian universe, Descartes and
the boundaries of science. Biology, medicine, chemistry. The
early Enlightenment.
Central texts: online selections from Bacon, Descartes, Newton.
4. English Revolution
Puritan Revolution and Glorious Revolution, established parliamentary
system and bill of rights. Hobbes and Locke as contrasting
theorists. American epilogue—intellectual foundations
of American Revolution and American form of government.
Central texts: Hobbes, Leviathan; Locke, Of Civil
Government
5. French Revolution
Absolutism in theory and practice; democratic theory; 1789–1799;
Napoleon and the legacy of the revolution; epilogue: 1815–71,
revolutions and constitutions.
Central text: Declaration of the
Rights of Man and the Citizen
6. Industrial Revolution
Industrialization; economic and social consequences; rise
of the middle class,
liberal economics; liberal politics; imperialism.
Central texts: Smith, Wealth of Nations;
Mill, On Liberty
7. Darwinian Revolution
Romanticism background (organic—growing and changing—favored
over idea of rational absolutes); Darwin and natural selection;
social darwinism; belief in progress; urbanization and art
(early impressionism); Marx.
Central texts: Darwin, Origin of Species; Marx and
Engels, Communist Manifesto
8. Technological Revolution
Guns, ships, trains, banks, cinematography; WWI; beginning
of American century; the individual out of control (Freud
and the unconscious); reclaiming the subjective—modern
art (cubism).
Central text: Eliot, The Waste-land
9. Russian Revolution
Lenin and the dictatorship of the proletariat; 1917–1924;
Stalin and the rise of the Soviet Union.
Central Text: Lenin, State and Revolution
10. Totalitarian Revolution
Rise of Fascism and Nazism; order vs. chaos; statism vs. egoism;
nationalism and the problem of the "other"—prelude
to Holocaust; WWII.
Central text: Hitler, Mein Kampf
11. Global Revolution
Decolonization and the legacy of the West; Cold War; post-Cold
War world and western civilization.
Central texts: Truman Doctrine; Fanon, Racism
and Culture
12. Sexual Revolution
Women's Liberation; feminist views; gay liberation; contemporary
family.
Central text: de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
13. Cultural Revolution
An electronic information age; "amusing ourselves to
death"; postmodernism; religion in the contemporary world;
multiculturalism; globalism.
Central texts: undecided as yet; will probably include Ellul,
Betrayal of the West
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Syllabus
